Female Toads Inflate to Avoid Sex

When it comes to choosing a mate, female toads may have more control than previously thought, say scientists. A report in the Royal Society’s Biology Letters journal describes how a female cane toad inflates its body to prevent an amorous male from mating with it.

This makes it difficult for the male toad to “hold on”.

Male toads often wrestle with each other in an effort to grasp a mate. By inflating, a female can influence the outcome of such a competition.

It is assumed that frogs and toads evolved the ability to inflate their bodies with air as a defence against predators. The team of scientists, from Australia and the Netherlands, described in their report how this deters predators “by increasing the apparent size of the [frog or toad] and by rendering it too large to ingest”.